Michelle Jamieson

Contact

Research title

Health barriers and educational enablers for the return to employment

Research summary

Research Summary

The aim of the PhD is to provide a richer understanding of how health shapes employment prospects: how poor health may lead to employment loss and/or hinder the return to employment for those out of work. It will be based primarily on the analysis of longitudinal data on individual health and employment histories, constructed from administrative datasets from Scotland.

Research Topic

The Impact of Health on Employment

Research Interests

Poverty, deprivation, and social exclusion

Health inequalities in marginalised groups (Roma)

Welfare conditionality

Mad Studies

Invisible disabilities (Traumatic Brain Injury, Chronic Pain)

‘Complex’ mental health difficulties (Psychosis, OCD, Anxiety)

Mixed methods, lived experience, and survivor co-production

Sponsor / Funder

Funded under the ESRC’s Industrial Strategies Challenge Fund.

Supervisors

Additional information

Michelle is a first-year ESRC-funded doctoral student in Urban Studies at the University of Glasgow. Before coming on board, she completed two postgraduate Masters degrees, and an undergraduate degree: a MSc in Global Mental Health (2015), and an MRes in Research Methods (2017), both also at the University of Glasgow, and a B.A (Hons) in Psychology (2014) gained at the University of the West of Scotland.

Michelle is interested in the critique of the psycho-social-political effects of the mental health practices, and how they shape our understanding of ourselves and our social situations in the present context of austerity and (un)employment. Also of interest is the exploration of the intersection of the mental health-poverty nexus, and the psy-disciplines and ideologies. How these function in the global, and local contexts of deprivation, inequality, and (neo)colonial oppression, especially for marginalised groups in the Scottish context is key to move towards a functional understanding.

From a young age, Michelle has been involved in the Roma, carer, disability, and mental health/survivor movements in Scotland, and abroad. She has been active in her local community in addressing the impact of the evolving welfare system on those who hear voices, or deal with compulsions. Michelle has also worked in human rights, and mental health NGOs as far away as Ighisu-Nou, Romania, to more locally in Pollok in the Southside of Glasgow. She is also a Graduate Member of the British Psychological Society, and active within Glasgow’s own Romano Lav, Vox Scotland, the Asylum collective, and Psychologists for Social Change. Outside of academia she is an avid listener of true crime podcasts, an amateur artist with paintings displayed across the city, and her recent writing can be found in The Psychologist, Marbles, and New Scientist.